


Sleeping Afraid

by LovelyDollParis



Category: Arcana Heart
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 00:46:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12399636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyDollParis/pseuds/LovelyDollParis
Summary: Haunted by past mistakes.





	1. Chapter 1

"Ahh, OUR room. Which bed do you want, Elsa?"

"The one you're not in."

"Oh! Elsa, how can you be cold?" It is a nice room. Even if Petra just got it for us for business purposes, it is still in Berlin. Hard to imagine many seedy hotels in a city like this.

"Well, what do you want to do first? Braid hair, arts and crafts, make snacks, tell spooky..."

"WE'RE going to SLEEP. Both me and you. We need to wake up early tomorrow for our mission, and I, for one, am jet lagged." There go her eyes...

"...Elsa...Please, please please!" And now she's crying. "I brought red bean pastries."

"SLEEP."

"Fine. Well, get in bed, and I'll sing you a lullaby, and serve you warm milk from our cute little fridge."

"Don't take anything from the fridge. They'll charge you four times the cost."

"What!?! But there're just a few small bottles. How greedy can they be to charge anything for so little an expense to them? Don't they know my Elsa needs her rest? What would they charge for the microwave!?!"

"It's probably free to use, but if you break anything Clarice, you're going to have to pay for it, so just go to sleep and don't touch anything."

"It feels like the world is out to ruin our special night. I guess I'll just cry myself to sleep, all alone, over here. Right after your lullaby."

"Please Clarice, I just need silence so I can sleep."

"Hmm. Alright..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

IIIIIIIIIIII JUST WANT TO TELL YOU HOW IM FEEling~ I GOTTA MAKE YOU-UNDERSTAND~NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP! NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN! NEVER GONNA RUN AROUND AND-DE "Pick up the phone already!" SSERT YOU~NEVER GONNA MAKE YOU CRY! "Sorry!" NEVER GONNA SAY GOODBYE! ~Beep~

"It's true though. Hello? Ah, Lord Fel- Hm?...Y-yes...Why?...Oh...Ah...Well yes, I suppose so..." She's turning away from me now and lowering her voice. That can't be good.

"No, don't worry about it. We had a change of plans anyway... Already?...yes OK then." ~Beep~ "Ahem...Elsa?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you don't want warm milk or sleeping pills? I can go out to a convenience store. It's not a problem." 

"You're not roaming the streets of a foreign city alone at night." Please Clarice, don't be doing something stupid.

"Hm. Maybe they have some at the front desk."

"Not for free. I'm fine Clarice. I just need peace and quiet."

"OK. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"..."

"..."

"..." 

BAM!BAM!BAM!

"I'll get it." I don't know why she's still whispering; the whole of Eastern Germany could have heard that knock.

"Ah, Lord Felchenrow! What a he-he SURPRISE." Clarice, it just takes ONE wink, and he should be the only one to see it.

"Oh, uh, Good evening Clarice, Miss la Conti, I'm sorry to drop by, er, unannounced," Is winking a foreign concept to demons? "but I could use some help."

"With what?"

"He just had a serious fight with his wife."

"And how would YOU know Clarice?"

"Er..." Is this what we look like to Petra when we think we're being sneaky?

"Can we come in yet? It's freezing cold."

"Lilica?" Lilica peeks her head in the doorway and glares at me.

"Yes, come on in you two. Elsa, surely we must help them, yes? Isn't that the right thing to do?"

"I guess. How did you two know where we were?"

"You think Clarice didn't immediately call Daddy to tell him all about your "special night" in a hotel bed together as soon as she heard it was going to happen?"

"Oh, uh, he-he..." 

"I'm sorry to put you out, but, well, I don't really have anywhere to go."

"Mommy...kicked him out of the house."

"You too?"

"No, but" She walks over to my bed and gets right in my face to whisper: "do you think I'd just let him sleep within a thousand miles of you? I'm going to watch you like a hawk, murderer." That makes sense. It looks like she'll be staring at me all night. Hope I can sleep alright knowing that. 

"Well, you two are welcome to have my bed. I can sleep on the floor."

"Thank you Miss la Conti, but please at least take the blanket and covers to sleep on. I won't need them. Is that alright with you sweetie?"

"Don't worry about me, Daddy. I'm wired on caffeine. I'll be up all night." I feel bad. Her parents are fighting, and she's losing sleep out of fear of me. Maybe I should just see if I can find somewhere else to sleep, but where? I hope I don't keep her father up either. 

"Alright Lord Felchenrow, you want to talk to me about what happened?"

"ZZZZZZZ...ZZZZZZZ..."

"Oh, well, I suppose it isn't bad enough to lose sleep over. Goodnight then, and goodnight to you too, Miss Felchenrow." As Clarice fumbles into her bed, she misses Lilica say: "But it is." under her breath. I set out the covers on the floor, and lie down facing away from the others, especially Lilica. 

"..."

"ZZZZZZZ...ZZZZZZZ"

"..."

"zzzzz...zzzzz" There's Clarice's heavy breathing. I suppose she wouldn't mind sleeping around any of us. She probably feels more comfortable with the three of us. I have to try to take my mind off Lilica. I'll just think about this meeting Petra has us attending. Rosenberg must be pretty busy if we're taking a meeting for Petra. Oh, I wonder if our alarm will bother the Felchenrows. Wait, don't worry about them, it'll work out. This mission is simple: I talk to the ambassador about the problem, explain what we can do to help, and Clarice will take notes. I don't know that I've seen her write before. Of course she can. She spends so much time reading, she's probably exceptional at writing. I wonder...what she...would write about...Oh, me...duh...


	2. Chapter 2

"Please! Go awa-..." You can't protect them. I will find them, crying or not. 

"Mama!...Mama! Auggggh huhuhu! Mama!"

"Your Mama is gone. Your Father is gone. Your siblings are gone. Your left alone, looking their killer in the eyes...How does it feel?"

"Mama!" They're too young to understand. If I leave them to suffer like I did, they may cause more evil before I get back to them. Maybe the next one will understand.

"Mam-AUGH..."

Gasp! Huff, Huff...A dream...Hm? Crying?

"L-Lilica?" She's sobbing by the window...

"Shhh. G-go back to sleep."

"I don't think I can."

"Well, go for a walk or something. I'm not falling asleep anytime soon, so you can forget about cutting our throats in our sleep." Why'd she say THAT...

"I'm different."

"What are you mumbling?"

"I said 'I'm different.'"

"Sure you are." I guess I can't make her believe that. I'm wondering if my own subconscious believes that, but I am.

"...Why are you crying? Your parents?"

"None of your business." It's five a.m., three hours early. I guess I can work with four hours of sleep.

"Do you want to go get coffee, and pastries? I'll buy."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Even if it means keeping an eye on me, keeping me away from your father, getting more caffeine to keep watching me, and having the public to report anything you're imagining I'll do to you?"

"Yes." Ouch, it's like her spite for me is stronger than any reasoning. I'm not even asking her to trust me.

"But, it's in your favor."

"To get coffee with someone who massacres my race, while everyone around is asleep? In front of a couple early-bird human civilians with no chance of fighting you? At least the annoying one almost killed you."

"M-massacrED. Past tense."

"What, did you give up when you couldn't kill Clarice without killing yourself, or are you just saving her for last?"

"Clarice made me understand."

"Understand what?"

"You aren't demons."

"Excuse me!?"

"I mean, your different demons."

"Different from what?!?"

"Evil demons. Like, pure evil fallen angels, possessing the living, driving us toward sin...You're just demonic. You're as sinful as humans, just with wings, tails, some powers."

"...you killed so many of us because your religion made us out to be pure evil!?"

"No, I believe there are actual demons, but you're just confused for them."

"You're claiming your genocide was an accident!?! Mistaken identity!?!?"

"Lower your voice."

"That's unbelievable!!!"

"In some ways, it wasn't 'mistaken identity.'"

"What are you even saying anymore?"

"When I was young, demons, that is, your race, destroyed my entire village. I watched them kill everyone I knew and burn everything down. Everyone was just confused. I was the only one who could see them, so I avoided them while everyone just ran aimlessly into them."

"..."

"It was...messy. They weren't just killing, they were having fun. I later found out they were demented teenagers having some kind of twisted night out. I couldn't recognize any corpses upon returning, but I...saw my father while fleeing. They hadn't touched his face yet, but he had his body split wide open, organs scraped off onto the ground and stomped on."

"Please..."

"Sorry. I assumed, based off that horror, and what I had learned about demons, that these were the pure evil demons, and that I was able to see them so that I could not only avenge my village, but protect the world from demons. I began doing everything I could to kill them all. It took me a while to track down the teenagers, but I found others in the meantime. My...second encounter with demons was...with a family. I don't know why they were in this plane; I didn't talk to them. I wish I had. I wish I'd have noticed they weren't hurting anyone. I was consumed by revenge. I killed the children. The young girl tried to protect her baby brother...they were both decapitated, and I felt nothing. I thought it was just that I wouldn't feel satisfied until they were all dead." Oh, I think I said too much. Lilica's in shock.

"...I'm sorry."

"For what? I should be apologizing for what I did and freaking you out."

"I'm sorry for your village. That's not really normal, but...there are more tragedies like that with demons than humans."

"But humans still do terrible things like that. I didn't understand it was a coincidence: that we're as moral as each other, neither perfectly good or bad. Then I went and set the bar higher."

"...I don't think what you did was worse."

"You're the last person I expected to say that, or at least after myself. I mean, I...SLAUGHTERED children."

"But you didn't like it. You didn't do it for fun, and you didn't disrespect their...bodies...You WERE still a monster though."

"'Were'?"

"Yes, were..." She looks at her father sleeping, and then back to me. "I still don't completely trust you, but I'll let you buy me coffee. I...kinda need to talk to someone about my parents. It's never been this bad."

"I'll be very happy to listen."


End file.
